6 Romanticism - The Lasting Effects (Isaiah Berlin 1965)

Isaiah Berlin gives the 6th and final lecture in a series of 6 on Romanticism and its roots.
All 6 lectures: • Romanticism - Isaiah B...
For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity’s view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results. As he said of the Romantics elsewhere: “The world has never been the same since, and our politics and morals have been deeply transformed by them. Certainly this has been the most radical, and indeed dramatic, not to say terrifying, change in men’s outlook in modern times.”
In these brilliant lectures Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define Romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how its lasting legacy permeates our own outlook. Combining the freshness and immediacy of the spoken word with Berlin’s inimitable eloquence and wit, the lectures range over a cast of the greatest thinkers and artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, and Beethoven. Berlin argues that the ideas and attitudes held by these and other figures helped to shape twentieth-century nationalism, existentialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and our ideas about heroic individuals, individual self-fulfillment, and the exalted place of art. This is the record of an intellectual bravura performance-of one of the century’s most influential philosophers dissecting and assessing a movement that changed the course of history. These Mellon lectures were delivered in Washington in 1965.
00:00 The Tradition
02:38 Romantic Attack
08:21 Myths & Art
15:20 Politics & Other Spheres
23:35 Music
31:23 Who Were They?
51:48 Transformation of Values
58:49 Existentialism
1:06:03 Fascism
1:07:08 Artistic Model of Life
1:08:05 What we owe to Romanticism
#Philosophy #Romanticism #IsaiahBerlin

[@Philosophy_Overdose]

00:00 The Tradition 02:38 Romantic Attack 08:21 Myths & Art 15:20 Politics & Other Spheres 23:35 Music 31:23 Who Were They? 51:48 Transformation of Values 58:49 Existentialism 1:06:03 Fascism 1:07:08 Artistic Model of Life 1:08:05 What we owe to Romanticism

[@letsrelaxwithtexts2114]

One of the best lecturer/presenter i ever listened to. If not the best.

[@garyleimback9576]

Having been a devotee of science, I at first thought that the basic empirical knowledge and laws of science had to provide the underlying basis of human life. Romanticism applied only to the realm of human art, psychology, and politics - the human sciences. Berlin makes a strong case for seeing creativity in all aspects of human life. As a believer that the Apollonian and Dionysian forces are built into every human being, as Nietzsche suggested, this leads to the depths and mysterious forces that impact individuals and societies as Berlin indicates. One cannot fail to see the creativity apparent in all the different civilizations of throughout history in law, art, architecture, and literature. Berlin captures the mystery of life basic to romanticism.

[@lincolngreen1344]

Spectacular framing of our predicament

[@jdzentrist8711]

So grateful to logos/Philosophy Overdose...These lectures have literally blown my mind. It was fifty-one years ago that I took British Lit II, and had my first intro to this "period of time." Part of my "thesis" was to cut out a photo of Mohammed Ali and title it, "Romantic Hero." It got me an A, but those grades were as meaningless then as they are now. Novalis came close to Catholicism; Friedrich Schelling did convert to Roman Catholicism. That religion, my own, kind of encapsulates many of these traits of Romanticism: One, Diverse, irrational ("mysterious"), "liberal" (in its American practice); introspective; "God is Love"; heroic; a dialectic of opposites the "will" (albeit of God); reactionary/revolutionary; conservative/liberal; "love the Church"...In the Holy Communion the "absurdity" of this tiny piece of "matter" containing, as it were, multitudes. Somehow the word "genius" is a lame thing when applied to a spirit like Berlin's.

[@JAI_8]

I think as a great champion of the enlightenment and rationalism, and dogged defender of Western society from the social and political irrationalism of the Romantics and their counter-enlightenment progenitors, Berlin would probably have resisted being described by the word “Genius”, one of those key counter-enlightenment Romanticist categories.

[@ASMRChess]

Love Isaiah!

[@geoffreynhill2833]

Picture: Sir Isaiah on holiday in Devon

[@garyleimback9576]

Ironically, the consequences of romanticism require us to accept the Enlightenment values of freedom, equality, rationality, justice, common sense, peace, successful economics. I think it was Rousseau who provided the principle that freedom exists most successfully when based on a political framework of laws. Laws allow people to be free and productive. A peaceful society gives the artist a space to create his/her art.

[@ryanbinz5753]

Excellent lecture, what a great speaker. My only critique: "Don Quicks it"?? Really? He didn't even try there lol come on you can do better Professor.

[@cliffpinchon2832]

he was rightly known as a terrible speaker...

[@christophergraves6725]

I can hardly understand what he is saying. I hear a few words here and there. This audio brings out how Britain and America are separated by a common language.

[@johncorte4696]

listen to it with reduced speed 0.75 %

[@brunischling9680]

That’s what I do too.